Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! (48 page)

I'm a temp typist. My agency said I'd be needed at the bank for six weeks, but it turned into four months. That was fine by me. I liked it there. A lot of the time there was hardly any work to do and I could just read or draw pictures on the computer. Funny, considering that this was the bank's head office and I was doing the typing for four different managers. And you should see what they were getting paid. The more important your job is, the more money you get and the less work you have to do.

Greaves didn't work any harder than the other managers, so he didn't give me any more work than they did. But he was a total asshole. He was just a horrible, arrogant asshole. Sometimes if you asked him a question he'd throw his head back and give this long, nasty laugh like you were dirt and there was something funny about you. And he wouldn't answer the question.

Once I asked him what time he needed some memos typed by, and he did that—
haw-haw-HAW—and
put his dirty hand on my shoulder and then just walked away.

I was angry at him doing that, him thinking he could do that to me because I was only twenty and female and only a temp. So, next time he walked past my desk, I had another question for him.

“Mr Greaves, what are you going to use for a face when Quasimodo wants that one back?”

All the other typists and even my supervisor laughed, but this time Greaves didn't. I thought he'd do something about it, maybe complain to my agency and ask for another temp to replace me. He didn't. But I soon realized he wasn't letting it go.

About a week after I said that to him, I sent a memo to all four managers, telling them I was taking Friday afternoon off, so if they had any typing for me to do they'd better give it to me first thing on Friday morning, and if they had anything really big they should give it to me the day before.

On the Thursday, Greaves walked up to my desk, the memo in his hand. “Hey, Ruth. I've got something big. Do you want it now?”

“Okay,” I said. “When do you need it done?”

“Oh, I don't have any
typing
for you to do. I just said I've got something
big.
That's what you asked in your memo.”

I stood up and made to say something or do something, but then the other girls—even Linda, my supervisor—started laughing. Laughing at that. Christ.

“Grow up,” I muttered, and sat down again.

“It's probably
too
big for you,” Greaves said. “You probably couldn't handle it.” Then he walked away and went into his office as the girls all started laughing again.

“I want something done about him,” I told Linda.

“Come on. He was only joking. He's not doing you any harm.”

I wrote a memo to Greaves, telling him that if he ever spoke to me that way again, I'd report him for sexual harassment. He didn't reply. I thought that might be it, that he might get me fired, but he never said anything. I could have just left. That's why I like being a temp—if you don't like a place you can just leave and get your agency to put you somewhere else. But it was a couple weeks before Christmas and things are always slow around then. If I left, I might not be able to get anything else until after New Year. Besides, it was the easiest job I'd had, and I wasn't going to let one buttfuck manager drive me out.

He did it, though.

The bank had a no-smoking policy. You couldn't smoke anywhere in the building. That was fair enough; there was hardly anybody who smoked. But I smoke like a crematorium. So I used to grind my teeth or chew gum until my lunch break and my morning and afternoon breaks, then go outside and get enough nicotine inside me to keep me going.

One morning I got a memo from Greaves telling me not to leave the building during my short breaks. I went into his office and asked him what he was playing at.

“None of the other typists go outside during their breaks. Why should you?”

“None of the other typists smoke. I do.”

“We have a no-smoking policy.”

“I know. That's why I go outside.”

He smiled at me. “Not anymore. You can conduct yourself like everybody else. You can leave during your lunch break. During your other breaks, you stay in the building.”

“You can't tell me what to do on my break. My break is mine. I'm not at work then.”

“No, but you're being paid. You're still paid for your time. So I want you to remain in the building in case you're needed.”

I couldn't handle that. I used the thought of the breaks to keep me going through the mornings and afternoons of cold turkey. Without it, I'd start sniffing white-out.

I tried to fight Greaves, but nobody else was interested—not the other managers, not my supervisor, not the other typists. I was just an obnoxious little temp with a big mouth and no sense of humor.

So I left. I got lucky and my agency found me another job, starting the next day. But I didn't feel any better. I felt as if anybody with plenty of money and no dress sense could do what they liked to me and I couldn't do anything except give in and walk out.

The day I walked out of the bank, I went to Tony's house and told him what had happened. He went nuts. Then he calmed down and said, “What does this Greaves look like?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I'm gonna wait outside the bank and kick his fucking ass when he comes out.”

“No, you're not.” Tony's settled down now, but he used to be wild. He was in a gang for a while. I didn't want him going back to that bullshit. “I don't need you getting in trouble. With your record, you only need to slap somebody and they'd lock you up.”

He laughed. “I know. I'd love to fuck him up, though. Prick.”

“So would I. But I don't want you doing it.”

He looked at me. “Serious?”

“About what?”

“Fucking him up?”

At first I wasn't sure. Then I was. “Yeah. Why?”

“I know how to find guys who'd do it. You'd have to pay them, but they come cheap.”

I waited to see if I was still sure, and I was.

“How cheap?”

They did it for a hundred and fifty. Seventy-five each. That wasn't in the newspaper. The rest of it was.

They got Greaves outside the bank and started kicking him. He fought back and shouted for help. One of them stuck a knife in his back and then they ran away. Greaves's lungs filled up with blood and he died just after the ambulance got him to the hospital.

The two guys got picked up by the cops a few blocks away. They'd gotten rid of the knife, but one of them had Greaves's blood on him. It was only about ten minutes after they'd done it.

Before he died, Greaves told the ambulance men that the guys had asked, “Are you Martin Greaves?” before they attacked him. So the cops want to know why. Tony says the guys don't know who he is.

Now it's Christmas Eve. Earlier tonight I was doing some last-minute shopping, getting some presents—one for Tony, one for my mom. The mall was really busy, lots of people with their kids. It said in the paper that Greaves had a wife and three kids. I wonder what he was like with them. I wonder if they knew what he was like at work.

I thought about them, but I still couldn't be sorry. I didn't think Greaves would get killed—Tony said they'd just kick the shit out of him—but I can't be sorry about him. The cops said it was “a brutal and cowardly murder,” but I don't see how it was. Greaves was brutal and cowardly. He thought he could do what he liked because he was in charge, but he was only in charge at the bank. Other people are in charge in other places. But people like Greaves and the cops and the papers only think it's fair if you do things the same way as they do. And they do things the way that suits
them.
What I did to Greaves maybe wasn't right, but it was as fair as what he did to me.

I'm going to my mom's for Christmas, then Tony and I are going to his sister's party at New Year.

Tony and I have made a New Year's resolution together. I told him that every job I've ever hated would have been a good job if it wasn't for the shit I had to take from managers. Tony said, “Yeah, I know what you mean. Too bad you can't get every one of them like you got Greaves.”

“Yeah,” I said. Then I said, “Why can't I?”

We just looked at each other, and I started to laugh.

Tim Wohlforth

Berkeley, California, 12:45-12:57 a.m., August 20, 1970:
A sliver of a moon hung over lower University Avenue. Faint street lights struggled to penetrate the gloom. A slight breeze off San Francisco Bay scattered the pages of
The Berkeley Barb
on the sidewalk in front of the Paradise Motel, a by-the-hour establishment. A lone woman with dyed-red hair and wearing a red mini-skirt shivered as she walked down the street, seeking eye contact with the male drivers of the few cars that passed by. A rat stuck its head out of a drain opening, then ran toward the closed Foster's Freeze store.

Ron Bradley sped past on his Harley heading toward the Marina. He had his guitar case strapped to his back.
Like Dylan.
Well, he hoped he didn't end up in an accident like Dylan. He peered for house numbers on darkened tenements. He was pissed. The numbers were all off. He must have missed the address of the party. He was almost at San Pablo. He wondered if the hippie girl had given him the wrong house number.

He'd promised to play the guitar. That line usually worked. He was pretty good. Not good enough to earn a living at it and he had no original material of his own. Just some Dylan songs from his acoustic period and a couple of blues he'd borrowed from Dave Van Ronk. Crazy, here he was black, well half black—his mother was Jewish—and he'd learned his blues from a white man. And truth be told he preferred hard rock, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Doors. But you can't ride around on a motorcycle with an electric guitar plus amp strapped to your back. He had a role to play and he was having a hell of a good time playing it. Until now.

He'd had one shitty day. His induction notice came in the morning's mail.
Nothing like winning the lottery.
He had graduated from Berkeley High a year ago and had yet to find permanent work. His father said he could get him on the “B” list at the docks. Good money but no security. His father had it made as an “A” list man. Good for him. But longshore was not Ron. He wasn't his dad. Waiting around for the draft had become his excuse to party for awhile before settling down to … he wasn't sure what. But something. Other than working on the docks. He would leave the future to the future. The government had made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He would go over to 'Nam and be the last to die for a lost cause.
Fitting in some weird way.
It had been one fucked-up year, My Lai in March, Kent State in May.

Tonight he had planned to forget the future, score some pot, pluck his guitar, and fuck a white chick. No such luck.

Officer John Yamamoto was having trouble keeping awake as he cruised slowly up University Avenue toward the campus. He looked forward to getting back into the university area. There he felt comfortable. Here he might as well be in Watts. The streets were empty, the stores closed, apartments few. He passed Grand Central Hot Tubs, Happy Days take-out, the ratty Paradise Motel, Foster's Freeze, H&B's army surplus, a sari store.

A streetwalker with dyed-red hair, wearing a red mini-skirt, ambled down the sidewalk. She waved at a passing car. The car didn't stop.
Good.
He wasn't interested in that kind of arrest.

Tina Perez shivered.
Cold mother-fucking night.
She wanted to go home, but she couldn't. She needed one more john. And then she could score and she'd be warm, very warm. Everything would be just fine. But the johns weren't stopping.

One lonely horny bastard would stop sooner or later. She had to hold herself together, fight the cold. Who would want to fuck a skinny, shivering bitch? Then a patrol car passed.
Shit.
But he didn't stop.
Good.
Just a little longer and she would get her break. Another car passed. The fucker gave her the finger. It was that kind of fucked-up night.

Malik Robeson drove a yellow Studebaker down San Pablo heading for University Avenue. He was pissed and high on weed. He turned to his companion, Ishmael Shabazz, and said, “So what did you make of Huey's speech?”

“Bullshit.”

“He dissed us” Malik responded. “Like they're all these tough motherfuckers and we're nobodies.”

“You got that right. Him and Bobby and Eldridge, they're just blowing it out their asses. They don't do nothin'. But they're right, you know.”

“‘Bout what?”

“The pigs,” Ishmael said. “The Muslims always talking about the white devils but they don't do shit about the pigs. Ever since I was a kid the cops hassled us. You remember back in the old hood? Not cuz we did anything. Cuz we're black.”